BRECKENRIDGE - The Gentlemen of the Blue Goose would've loved to win their season finale Saturday against visiting Steamboat.

They settled for a .500 record instead, and still went home smiling - bloody and exhausted, but smiling nonetheless.

The numbers told the story Saturday at Kingdom Park, and it had nothing to do with the convincing 33-12 victory Steamboat took back to its Springs. This was about a season devoted to reclaiming respect.

The Breckenridge-based Goose had long been one of the better mountain-town rugby programs in the West, but last summer's 1-13 record left the club in bad need of a makeover.

Eight wins later, with two semifinal berths in prestigious tournaments and its hard-hitting image restored, the Goose has returned to respectability.

"To me, that speaks for itself," Breck coach Peter Shafroth said of the 8-8 record. "If you had come out here every week, you would've seen every week we had a different group of players. And that's maybe the most impressive thing, to be able to play as well as we did with a different crew each week."

Saturday's crew included 16 players for the 15-man game. Injured Gentlemen - and Gentlewoman, in the case of Suzanna Barth - played despite strained groins, injured ankles, bloody noses, you name it. The only guy who could not play through his injury was Goose veteran scrum half Russell Backhouse, perhaps the toughest of them all.

Backhouse left the match after making a nice run to set up Breck's second try. The reason? His eyebrow nearly got ripped off his skull, leaving his face drenched in blood with a few minutes remaining.

As far as the scoring went, Steamboat jumped on top with two tries after shoddy tackling augmented pretty runs down the muddy pitch. It looked like the match might be headed for a blowout at that point, but the Goose had different plans.

After a bruising run by Goose No. 8 Zack Zellars - the 6-foot-3, 220-pounder uprooted one 'Boat defender with a nasty forearm shiver - "Big" John Terrill pushed across a try on the last play of the first half. Zellars' conversion kick cut the deficit in half, making it 14-7 at intermission.

The try was the second of the season for Terrill, Breck's tree trunk (6-foot-1, 295-pound) of a prop, who hadn't scored since the season opener in June.

A long, shifty run by inside center Brian Jones put the Goose in position to tie the score early in the second half, but one of the day's many turnovers followed, and Steamboat took it from there.

The orange-and-green-clad visitors scored three consecutive tries to make it 33-7, putting the match out of reach. Their cohesion and obvious chemistry made the difference.

"They only had 17 guys" on Saturday, Zellars said, "but it was 17 guys that I've seen on their squad all summer long."

It wasn't until Tom Begley touched down with a few minutes to play that Breck's weary and defeated side secured a last measure of respect. Shortly thereafter, the local boys called it a summer.

"It was good to see that we got the last score of the day," Shafroth said. "That's kind of what this team is about: They can get down, but they're never out."

Saturday's win was the third time this season Steamboat (11-5) defeated the Goose. It marked a stark contrast from just a few years ago, when Breckenridge was finishing off a decade of dominance over Steamboat and the 'Boat, in the words of one of its players, was reeling from a decade spent as "the Bad News Bears of the mountain rugby world."

As for Breck's Gentlemen, they toasted the season with cold beers as an early autumn storm rolled over the Tenmile Range.

"You couldn't have asked for any more heart or love for the game out of everybody," Terrill said. "To come away with a 50-50 season's not bad."



Devon O'Neil can be contacted at (970) 668-4633, or at doneil@summitdaily.com.